Question

In a food chain, a lion is a
A) Secondary consumer
B) Primary consumer
C) Tertiary consumer
D) Secondary producer

Answer 1

Hint: There are different trophic levels in a food chain in which the organisms are kept at each trophic level based on their feeding habit. The trophic level starts from producers and goes up for consumers and more.

Complete answer:
For getting the answer to this question, simply consider a food chain of grassland ecosystem as below –
Grasses – Rabbit – Fox – Lion
In this food chain, the grasses are producers and are at the first trophic level. Rabbit feeds on grasses and thus it is an herbivorous animal and is the primary consumer for this food chain. Fox is carnivorous and hence it will be on the next level in this food chain i.e. secondary consumer. Lions can eat fox and thus it will be on the next trophic level which is a tertiary consumer. A lion is a tertiary consumer in both grassland and forest ecosystems. For any of the terrestrial food chain, carnivorous animals like predatory birds and lions acquire the highest trophic level and hence are also called top carnivorous animals of the food chain whereas the plants and other photosynthetic forms will always be on the first trophic level and are energy providers in the food chain. One important thing about the food chain is that shorter food chains provide greater available energy for the top-level organisms.

So, the correct answer is ‘Tertiary consumer’.

Note: Lions cannot be a producer because producers are those organisms that can perform photosynthesis. Also, as the first trophic level is for producers like plants, a lion cannot be the primary consumer because it cannot feed on plants and primary consumers are the herbivores.